Page 55 of Iron

“Sometimes things happen, and you need a place to take out the trash,” Rowan said with a shrug. “I’m sure you know about that all too well.” There was no judgment in her tone. I gathered that she wasn’t a stranger to the dark side of life. Maybe more so than the plushy kind of outskirts of illegal that Petra had here.

But it wasn’t the time to figure all that shit out.

I needed to know what the hell was going on with Petra.

“I’ll go check it out. You stay here in case she comes back and I miss her. My guy said her phone moved around a bit for an hour. Maybe she found…”

“Midori,” Rowan supplied and her eyes cut over to the other guy.

“Midori and is on her way here. Could be she needed to talk to the girl about something before they got back.” I shrugged. It didn’t exactly seem like a Petra thing to do, but I wasn’t all that sure. I figured she was the type that liked to conduct all her business in this office. “If there was a body to be taken care of I’m sure she would have called you in.” I looked over at Garen with a raised brow. His expression pretty much told me I was spot on with that statement.

I took a deep breath and tried to think of what the hell she might be doing.

“If she comes back, tell her to call me,” I said to Garen.

With a firm nod, he let me know that he would do it.

Thank fucking Christ I didn’t have to deal with him trying to give me shit.

“It’s the second building before you hit the cross street, on the left,” he told me as I turned and headed for the door.

Once I was outside, I jogged down the street since it wasn’t that far. Not sure why she’d taken her car, but I figured she had her reasons. Then I thought about those fuckin’ heels she wore all the time. Yeah, I’d have wheeled my ass up here too if I’d been wearing those things.

Then again, maybe she had stopped on her way back to her building.

I saw the back of her car and as I approached the rear driver’s side wheel, the door popped open.

All the air rushed out of my lungs in relief as I saw a tall, pointed high heeled shoe plant itself on the pavement.

“What the hell, Pet?!” I growled as my feet closed the distance between us.

Wrapping her up in my arms, I breathed in her sharp scent. Calming myself down was proving to be a problem right now.

“Why are you here?” she asked as she pulled away from me. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the corners like she couldn’t understand why I’d come looking for her.

“Why areyouhere? What the hell are you doing?” I shot back.

“Something is going on with one of my girls. I followed her phone. I found it next to a dumpster outside an awful smelling Chinese restaurant.” Her eyes closed and she gave her head a quick shake like she was trying her best to forget about the smell. “I was at a loss, so I thought it was best to head back and try to figure out what to do next. But then I saw wet tracks down this alleyway.”

“What are you saying?”

“No one should be driving down here. It rained yesterday, so everything should be dry. Except that behind this building there is a huge pothole that holds water for days.”

“So someone must have driven through it,” I finished.

“Yes,” she said with a slight nod. “I’m here to check it out.”

“Petra,” I said trying my hardest to stay calm. “When shit like that happens, you call me.”

“Why?” she asked like she couldn’t wrap her pretty little head around all the reasons. “I’m sure I can handle looking in a building by myself.” I could see the fire and the fight rising up in her eyes.

The last thing Petra ever wanted was for someone to treat her like she couldn’t do something. That wasn’t my point here and I knew I had to make quick work of getting her to see that.

“It’s not about that, babe,” I told her as I held her eyes with mine. “It’s about me being there for you. It’s about me having your back and knowing that I’m there with you for shit like this. It’s about love, Pet, not me thinkin’ you can’t do shit on your own.”

“Oh,” she said and I was honestly a little stunned at how the word fell out of her mouth. It was like she’d never thought of it like that before but now that I’d explained it, the whole thing made sense to her.

“So this is the dump building?” I asked with a raised brow.